Weathering and Erosion?! Grand Canyon, AZ

Glaciers?! Fairweather Mountain, AK

I absolutely love Popplet! My students and I will be using it on a weekly basis to create anchor charts, organize thoughts, assess understanding or help students create connections of concepts.


What I did for a Tech Infused Lesson:
While discussing force with my 5th graders I wanted to them to organize their thoughts during the week, in order to Tech Up my lesson decided that my students were going to use Popplet to be the medium through which students would organize and developed their thoughts.

Since it was my first time using Popplet as a class I didn't want to purchase the Group Subscription because I wasn't sure how it was all going to work out. What I ended up doing was creating 11 (you read correctly... 11!!) different Gmail school accounts and Popplet accounts so that each student could save their work. If you remember from above... I would highly recommending looking into Popplet Groups.

I checked out the netbook cart from our Media Center for the week since this was going to be an ongoing lesson. I walked students through signing on (after the first 2 days they got the hang of it!). On Monday I started my lesson by explaining what force is and the students independently watched a Brain Pop Jr. video about force. Then we went through together and listed the 5 kinds of force that we were going to discuss for the week (magnetism, push, pull, gravity, friction). Each day we focused on a specific kind of force and added definitions, examples and pictures (from Flickr) to our Popplets. On Friday I took the students to the computer lab and we printed our Popplets and they glued them in their science journals.




Lesson Reflection: 
I thought the lesson went pretty smoothly and students really enjoyed creating their Popplets. I wish I would have had students collaborate on Popplets so that they didn't take as much time to create and then they could have taught each other from their one Popplet. Many students gave examples that truly showed that they applied their academic vocabulary and understood the content. I did not think ahead of time about modifying the assignment for specific students but on the spot I was able to tell them my expectations (Ex: I had a special education student that provided only pictures for examples). In the future I would also like to provide students with a rubric and have them proof read each others work.

A few random notes:
1. For the iPads/iPods: Popplet Lite App is what you have to use due to flash... it works well but I personally prefer the website
2. I would highly recommend looking into Popplet Groups 
3. Sometimes the pictures from Flickr can be inappropriate, ahead of time be sure you have discussed digital citizenship and what to do if you happen to be presented with inappropriate content

If you have IPads then you have GOT to start having students CREATE with Educreations. Educreations is like a personal SmartBoard for each student but it allows them to import pictures, record their work and easily share with one another.

My students absolutely live for our 45 minutes of science everyday. This year I have heard more "What if....?" questions than in the past. Even though they love science when it comes to the STAAR it is always such a struggle for my students because of the amount of vocabulary and then add a language barrier to the equation and it can make for an uphill battle. My team uses Quizlet (digital flashcard website and app) on a regular basis for ELA vocabulary, since they were having so much success I decided to apply the same practice to Science. I created six different "decks" and posted them to our grade-level webpage but also linked them to QR codes and posted them around the classroom and outside on my bulletin board. The students were able to BYOD and scan the code and save the address to their device so they could practice in-class, at home, in the car or while waiting for a table at a restaurant. I created two set of each "deck" one with picture and the other without pictures. I don't know my STAAR scores but I can tell you through observations my students science vocabulary has improved and they have enjoyed the practice.

Just an opinion: while the Quizlet app is very helpful the students are able to do more from the website.

With the STAAR test approaching my students and I were getting pretty bored reviewing standardized test questions with paper and pencil so I decided to call upon my PLN. After a few #'s I stumbled on a sparkling jewel called Kahoot! Below is an email that I sent to my school after implementing Kahoot in my classroom...